Violent Criminal Apprehension Program
Encyclopedia
The Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) is a unit of the United States
Federal Bureau of Investigation
responsible for the analysis of serial violent and sexual crimes, organizationally situated within the Critical Incident Response Group
's (CIRG) National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime
(NCAVC).
ViCAP was created in 1985 by the FBI out of Quantico, Virginia
. Pierce Brooks was appointed as the first director, primarily because as a homicide detective in Los Angeles
he had been the first to propose the idea. Brooks was inspired by the Harvey Glatman case he had worked on in which he realized serial homicides could be linked by their signature aspects. Brooks would later obtain a $35,000 government grant in an attempt to realize his idea. In 1982, he met with Robert Ressler to discuss the idea and was convinced by Ressler that VICAP should be located at Quantico as opposed to Lakewood where Brooks originally planned to have it housed.
It is designed to track and correlate information on violent crime, especially murder. The FBI provides the software for the database which is widely used by state and local law enforcement agencies to compile information on:
Cases fitting these categories can be entered into the system by law enforcement officials and compared to other cases in an attempt to correlate and match possible connections. Vi-CAP has been a tool in solving many cases, including cases decades old and cases in widely separated states. Vi-CAP is particularly valuable in identifying and tracking serial killers, where separate victims might not otherwise be connected as part of the same pattern.
The aforementioned pattern that links serial homicides is what is commonly referred to as "signature". VICAP operates under the knowledge that serial homicides are almost always sexually and control driven with a consistent evolving signature present in each murder.
In the summer of 2008, the ViCAP program made their database available to all law enforcement agencies through a secure internet link. This allows for real time access to the database and allows agencies to enter and update cases directly into the database.
Highway Serial Killing Innitiative and ViCAP Podcast
Behavioral Analysis Unit 2 and ViCAP Podcast
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
responsible for the analysis of serial violent and sexual crimes, organizationally situated within the Critical Incident Response Group
Critical Incident Response Group
The Critical Incident Response Group is the part of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation which facilitates the FBI's rapid response to, and the management of, crisis incidents...
's (CIRG) National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime
National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime
In November 1982, following a meeting between members of the Criminal Personality Research Project advisory board and other specialists, the concept of a single ' was put forward. This elite investigative branch was never envisaged as a replacement for traditional crime investigation by local law...
(NCAVC).
ViCAP was created in 1985 by the FBI out of Quantico, Virginia
Quantico, Virginia
- Demographics :As of the census of 2000, there are 561 people, 295 households, and 107 families living in the town. The population density is . There are 359 housing units at an average density of .-Racial composition:...
. Pierce Brooks was appointed as the first director, primarily because as a homicide detective in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
he had been the first to propose the idea. Brooks was inspired by the Harvey Glatman case he had worked on in which he realized serial homicides could be linked by their signature aspects. Brooks would later obtain a $35,000 government grant in an attempt to realize his idea. In 1982, he met with Robert Ressler to discuss the idea and was convinced by Ressler that VICAP should be located at Quantico as opposed to Lakewood where Brooks originally planned to have it housed.
It is designed to track and correlate information on violent crime, especially murder. The FBI provides the software for the database which is widely used by state and local law enforcement agencies to compile information on:
- solved and unsolved homicideHomicideHomicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...
s, especially those involving a kidnappingKidnappingIn criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...
or if they are apparently motiveless, sexual or random or suspected to be part of a series - missing persons, where foul playCrimeCrime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
is suspected - unidentified persons, where foul play is suspected
- sexual assault cases
Cases fitting these categories can be entered into the system by law enforcement officials and compared to other cases in an attempt to correlate and match possible connections. Vi-CAP has been a tool in solving many cases, including cases decades old and cases in widely separated states. Vi-CAP is particularly valuable in identifying and tracking serial killers, where separate victims might not otherwise be connected as part of the same pattern.
The aforementioned pattern that links serial homicides is what is commonly referred to as "signature". VICAP operates under the knowledge that serial homicides are almost always sexually and control driven with a consistent evolving signature present in each murder.
In the summer of 2008, the ViCAP program made their database available to all law enforcement agencies through a secure internet link. This allows for real time access to the database and allows agencies to enter and update cases directly into the database.
External links
Highway Serial Killing Innitiative and ViCAP Podcast
Behavioral Analysis Unit 2 and ViCAP Podcast